With Venetian colors, Asian artifacts, and classic French craftsmanship, Rose Anne de Pampelonne brings her family's Beaux Arts mansion in Paris back to life

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In the beginning, there was a bed, a sumptuous 1940s relic with leafy silvered legs and a neo-Baroque headboard. But Rose Anne de Pampelonne didn't intend to use it for sleeping. Instead she placed it in a corner of her new living room in Paris, swathed it with silk velvet and brocade, and piled it with comfortable cushions—much to the puzzlement of associates of her bank-president husband, Bruno. They still can't quite fathom why anyone would install a bed in a public space. For Pampelonne, a fashion and interior designer, though, its presence evokes romantic images of Greta Garbo lounging about in the 1936 movie Camille—and also provides anyone perching there a firm sense of place. "You look up at the ceiling with all those moldings," she asserts, "and you say to yourself, 'This is France!'"

Not far from the Invalides, the home of Baron and Baroness Bruno de Pampelonne is one of a mirror-image pair of opulent limestone mansions built in the early 1900s for twin sisters. Serendipitously, those siblings, who could visit each other through doors connecting the buildings, turned out to be related to Bruno—something he realized only when he arrived at the closing and discovered the Beaux Arts house was being sold (surprise!) by one of his aunts.

The parents of three sons ranging in age from nine to 22, the Pampelonnes have always preferred houses to apartments. "I love having different areas with distinct characters, because in an apartment, one room sort of blends into another," says Rose Anne, who trained as a fine-art and book restorer before taking up fashion and interior design (British art photographer Amanda Eliasch is a client). She also likes the idea of multiple floors, so "everyone can have their own zone." Downstairs is a basement family room and a courtyard landscaped by Olivia Putman, the gardener daughter of modern-style doyenne Andrée Putman. On the first floor are the living and dining rooms. Sons Alexis, Ludovic, and Dominic are allocated the second floor—one door bears a sign warning "Ludovic's Salon: Do Not Enter"—and the parents are ensconced on the third. For years, however, the house had been occupied and roughly treated by a pharmaceuticals company. The entrance hall was partitioned to accommodate a reception area. Linoleum covered the floors, the modern hardware was cheap, and the staircase was painted red. As Pampelonne says, "It was really ghastly."

The original splendor needed to be revived—though to honor the elaborate architecture rather than complement the new owners' noble titles. "The Pampelonnes were not part of the court aristocracy," explains the Manila-born designer, who laughingly declares she was groomed to marry a Frenchman from the age of five. "They were the good, old, boring nobles. They defended the country and had fortresses." Two rooms were knocked together to create the grandly scaled living room. Fireplaces and columns were installed, new parquet and marble floors were laid, and walls were given a painted stone finish that "feels like a house in England," Pampelonne says.

There is indeed a British coziness to the rooms, although so much is unmistakably French. Made by Bricard, a firm that has been crafting deluxe hardware since the 1700s, the new bronze door handles blush with a pink-gold finish: "The company was working on the sultan of Brunei's house in Place Vendôme at the same time, and this is the same patina he selected," Rose Anne explains. Fabrics by Tassinari & Chatel and Georges Le Manach are everywhere. Pointing out a hand-loomed silk velvet, the designer says, "The weavers only produce two centimeters a day."

Asian antiques, including several from Rose Anne's native country, bring a dash of the Far East into the mix. Tang dynasty statuettes cluster atop a 17th-century Filipino kamagong-wood altar table whose extra-deep drawers were used for storing church candles. A tasseled chinoiserie lamp (very Farewell My Concubine) nestles in a shadowed corner. In the dining room stands an ivory-inlaid chest from Manila. The family room is full-bore Filipino chic—indigenous fabrics, sculptural antique fishing baskets hung as art. While the color scheme of this room is subdued blues and beiges with dashes of ebony, the living room above is vibrantly Venetian, all saffron-yellow, moss-green, and berry-red. Pampelonne says, "The more hues there are, the more life there is." She's a firm believer in layering patterns too: A black-and-white-stripe painting by Swiss artist Philippe Decrauzat blooms like a giant Op Art flower against a panel of yellow silk damask edged with green silk faille.

The dining room murals are equally striking artistic additions. Inspired by the backgrounds of Renaissance paintings, they combine scenes of birds and trees with profiles of the couple's sons and portraits of family pets. At the moment, however, the bucolic details can barely be seen, so filled is the room with racks displaying the latest collection of Pampelonne's eponymous fashion line, which she produces with craftspeople in Nepal. "The clothes have invaded a bit," she admits. "They've got to get out of here so I can get back to entertaining correctly."